Awarded to Alexandre J. Chorin (Berkeley, USA).
The Lagrange Prize was established to provide international recognition to individual mathematicians who have made an exceptional contribution to applied mathematics throughout their careers. It was created on the initiative of SMAI, SEMA and SIMAI and first awarded in 1999. Carrying a cash award of USD 3000, the Lagrange Prize is presently funded by the three member societies SMAI, SEMA and SIMAI.
Alexandre J. Chorin of University of California Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory receives the 2011 ICIAM Lagrange Prize in recognition of his fundamental and original contributions to applied mathematics, fluid mechanics, statistical mechanics, and turbulence modelling. His methods for the numerical solution of Navier–Stokes equations stand at the basis of the most popular codes in computational fluid mechanics.
Alexandre J. Chorin is a professor of mathematics at the University of California Berkeley and also a member of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He was born in Warsaw, Poland, on 25 June 1938. He graduated from École Polytechnique Fédérale (EPFL) of Lausanne, Switzerland. He then received his M.S. and his Ph.D. from the Courant Institute of New York University.
Beginning with his pioneering work 40 years ago, Chorin developed some of the key mathematical and algorithmic ideas that underlie many of the most powerful computer codes in computational fluid dynamics, by blending mathematical intuition, physical insight and a deep attention to practical implementation.
In the mid 1960s, Chorin invented the Projection Method and the Artificial Compressibility Method. These techniques were the first practical and accurate methods for approximating the full Navier–Stokes equations. By performing careful numerical experiments along with theoretical convergence studies, Chorin has placed the numerical solution of complex flow on a solid mathematical foundation for the first time.
Chorin followed this with the invention and design of Vortex Methods, for which he was given the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Award in Applied Mathematics and Numerical Analysis. These techniques, based on the critical role of vorticity, are particularly suited to modelling the complex mixing and instabilities of turbulent flow. They allow the computation of the large transitory fluid structures critical to fluid mixing, wake development and chemical transport.
In addition to the above work, Chorin was one of the pioneers in the development of high resolution methods for gas dynamics and combustion, in particular through his work on random-choice methods. Chorin has also made profound contributions to the application of methods of modern physics to turbulence modelling, numerical path integration, numerical methods for front motion, the kinetic theory of gases, phase transitions and Monte-Carlo methods.
Subcommittee for the 2011 ICIAM Lagrange Prize
- Alfio Quarteroni (EPFL, Switzerland), chair;
- Alfredo Bermúdez (Santiago, Spain);
- Ron deVore (Texas A&M, USA);
- Yvon Maday (Paris Jussieux, France);
- Stefan Müller (Bonn, Germany);
- Zhong-ci Shi (Beijing).